Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 21:39:45 GMT
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Last-modified: Thu, 09 Mar 1995 19:20:31 GMT
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<title>
An Informal, Local Web Survey
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<h1>
An Informal, Local Web Survey
</h1>
<p>
This document summarizes responses to a local survey on World Wide Web use.
The survey was posted to uw-cs.grads and mailed to the Softbot researchers,
the HCI seminar and the Web seminar.  There were 19 responses.  The responses
are ordered according to the number of times they were mentioned.
</p>
<h3>
Acknowledgments
</h3>
<p>I'd like to thank
<!WA0><!WA0><a href="http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/forman/">George Forman</a>
for many of the suggestions and comments regarding features in Netscape.
</p>
<h2>
What do you use the Web for?  Give examples.
</h2>
<ol>
<li> Locate and retrieve things I know about. (6)
<li> Surf for things I don't know about. (6)
<li> Keep abreast of new products. (5)
<li> Search for academic or industrial technical reports. (5)
<li> Access course materials. (5)
<li> Keep abreast of research projects. (3)
<li> Keep abreast of people. (3)
<li> Distribute research papers. (3)
<li> Read <em>Dilbert</em>. (3)
<li> Find departmental information (courses, seminars, colloquia). (3)
<li> Read <em>Wired</em>. (2)
<li> Obtain support on current products. (2)
<li> Describe research for advisor and interested parties. (2)
<li> Distribute course materials. (2)
<li> Locate and download software. (2)
<li> Look and apply for employment. (2)
<li> Review conference announcements and check submission guidelines and dates.
 (2)
<li> Check availability of computing resources.
<li> Read movie reviews.
<li> Distribute software.
<li> Check the current temperature.
<li> Check ski conditions.
<li> Schedule conference rooms and meetings with visitors.
<li> Find and download images.
<li> Kill time.
<li> Access stock market data.
<li> Obtain IRS tax forms.
<li> Obtain Internet statistics.
<li> Access dictionary.
</ol>
<h2>
What do you like about the Web?
</h2>
<ol>
<li> Hypertext navigation is easy. (9)
<li> It combines several information formats "seamlessly". (7)
<li> There is a great range and amount of information available. (5)
<li> I can easily access things I know about. (4)
<li> It can be quick. (3)
<li> I can download documents with a mouse click. (2)
<li> I can be my own publisher. (2)
<li> It can remember which pages I've visited. (2)
<li> It's well organized.
<li> It's open-ended and growing.
<li> It's free.
<li> It can be personal (e.g. individual home pages).
<li> I can create non-linear documents.
<li> Global addressing works.
</ol>
<h2>
What could be improved?  What could be added?
</h2>
<ol>
<li> Speed it up! (5)  (Netscape is much faster than Mosaic.)
<li> Improve the ability to discover something on the Web.  (5)
<li> Improve the ability to find something when I don't know it's URL. (4)
<li> No single index of resources. (3)
<li> Improve authoring tools for document structure. (2)
<li> Add text-formatting for mathematical notation and tables.
<li> Permit embedding of Postscript in documents.
<li> Add more "types" of documents.  This can be done with <em>.mailcap</em>
or <em>.mime.types</em>.
<li> Improve reliability of servers.
<li> Discriminate quality of information on a page.  Netscape visually
indicates which pages are cryptographically secure, but I don't think
this guarantees "quality" in the manner it was suggested.
<li> Summarize information.
<li> Estimate time of downloads (Netscape does this).
<li> Better <em>Hotlist</em> and memory control.  Netscape has hierarchical
hotlists, memory and disk cache control and proxies.
<li> Hierarchical navigation of the Web using <em>Forward</em> and
<em>Back</em>.
<li> Better visualization of the Web "tours".
<li> Make retrieval asynchronous (this is done in Netscape).
<li> Prefetch less detailed images, then full images while user is reading
(Netscape has this too!).
<li> Ability to author forms (questionaires, surveys).
<li> Grab source "structure", remove content, and use skeleton.
<li> Universal <em>man</em> page browser.
<li> Automated addess management.
<li> Cross-Web <em>glimpse</em> indexing.
<li> Better (autonmated) copying and mirroring of servers.
<li> Searching for and recognizing changed pages.
<li> <em>Flattening</em> a hypertext document.
<li> Viewing the Web as a global file system.
</ol>
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<hr>
<address>
<!WA1><!WA1><a href="http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/joebob/index.html">Joseph M. Sherman</a> <br>
Last modified:  Wednesday, March 8, 1995
</address>
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